There seems to be a trend of late to take the minimialisation of interactive design to the extreme. Now I’m all or minimialisation and making user interfaces simipler.
You know making an interface streamlined to just the solid functionality of the interaction and no more.
I have been noticing a very frightening tread. In an effort to make things more usable, we are designing interfaces without the very functions used to support usability in the first place.
We all know the goal of any web site is to make the user experience as informative and pleasant as possible. Reduce the frustration factor and all that, close the sale, win the customer.
Well seems Donna Spencer has found a few car sites that are the exception to the rule, particularly the Peugeot site. In short the sites alienate, and hard to navigate without previous product experience.
Now at first I was under the impression that maybe this site was basically put together by an inexperienced marketing agency that has no idea on how to approach the web at all.
We all produce near perfect interfaces for web sites, with a user experience that is optimal for the clients audience and budget. That’s a given. After all the dark years we are all doing it the right way, or at least trying to. Right?
And as the user experience spotlight has streamed over the web, it is now focusing on the Intranets of many organisations.
Now an Intranet can be a completely different beast than the corporate web site. For starters it’s not just about a single web site, it can be multiple sites over distributed and differing solution architectures. Containing various off the shelf applications from CRM, accounting, records and knowledge management and the like.
Gary Barber
I’m an independent User Experience Consultant.
I design interfaces, build information architectures, HTML prototypes, run workshops on UX design, do user research and conduct usability & accessibility testing and audits.
I can work within your existing team or as an external consultant on a contract or adhoc basis.
You can contact me via my company, radharc or just email me.
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